During this visit, you should work with one or more groups of students if you haven't already, and observe your teacher doing the same. For this journal entry, describe your teacher's teaching style. What type of relationships with students does he or she nurture in his or her classes? How do students perceive that power is distributed in the classes? Does this vary within or across the different classes the teacher has? Cite examples from your observations to support your inferences. Remember to reflect on what style of teaching you will gravitate toward and the how you want to be perceived by your students.
Observations:
Ms. Derix worked with the whole class on discussing the role of the snails in the ecosystem, particularly the freshwater, and then went around the class and added freshwater snails to their ecocolumns. After this was a period of group work for observing the snails and their environment, noting changes, questions, and drawing anything they wished to make note of in their notebooks. During this time Ms. Derix went around to each lab table with some land snails to talk about the differences and question the students on what they had discussed as a class. She probed for the concepts covered in the reading they had done as well as what was talked about. Ms. Derix encourages questions, with your hand raised, and with others remaining silent to listen respectfully. The students seem to understand that Ms. Derix has the power in the classroom and do not seem to challenge her. Though they may ask questions, it is in the nature of clarification rather than insubordination. In most of the classes she is easily able to get to all of the groups though in one where their were many questions during the class discussion, she was left with very little time with each group.
Reflections:
My own experience of working with the students is that for every question I may ask of them, they counter with a question as well. Such as when I asked how the ecocolumn may change now that the snail was in it and was told that it may eat the plants that the fish do, they then asked if the snails ate anything else and if the fish did too or if they both only ate the plants. It was encouraging to find that most of the students were truly curious and inquisitive even if they were not particularly interested in the snails. One girl said she didn't want it in their but then when asked how else she would keep the algae from overgrowing it, she decided that it really did have its own role to play. she was then asking questions about what else the snail may do to help the fish she seemed to enjoy so much. This experience has led me to feel that an inquisitive classroom is very effective in helping the students build their own knowledge and challenge their perceptions of the world around them. However I also feel that this could get out of hand without the base respect that Ms. Derix had. Without the respect to raise their hands, and listen when others are talking, as well as waiting for their turn to work in a smaller group with the teacher bedlam may occur. I hope that my own students will see that I am open to inqusition yet als ask them to respect each other and myself in their search for answers.
Class Topic: Snail addition to Ecocolumn
Grade: 6
Observed by: Mary Ackerman
Observations:
Ms. Derix worked with the whole class on discussing the role of the snails in the ecosystem, particularly the freshwater, and then went around the class and added freshwater snails to their ecocolumns. After this was a period of group work for observing the snails and their environment, noting changes, questions, and drawing anything they wished to make note of in their notebooks. During this time Ms. Derix went around to each lab table with some land snails to talk about the differences and question the students on what they had discussed as a class. She probed for the concepts covered in the reading they had done as well as what was talked about. Ms. Derix encourages questions, with your hand raised, and with others remaining silent to listen respectfully. The students seem to understand that Ms. Derix has the power in the classroom and do not seem to challenge her. Though they may ask questions, it is in the nature of clarification rather than insubordination. In most of the classes she is easily able to get to all of the groups though in one where their were many questions during the class discussion, she was left with very little time with each group.Reflections:
My own experience of working with the students is that for every question I may ask of them, they counter with a question as well. Such as when I asked how the ecocolumn may change now that the snail was in it and was told that it may eat the plants that the fish do, they then asked if the snails ate anything else and if the fish did too or if they both only ate the plants. It was encouraging to find that most of the students were truly curious and inquisitive even if they were not particularly interested in the snails. One girl said she didn't want it in their but then when asked how else she would keep the algae from overgrowing it, she decided that it really did have its own role to play. she was then asking questions about what else the snail may do to help the fish she seemed to enjoy so much. This experience has led me to feel that an inquisitive classroom is very effective in helping the students build their own knowledge and challenge their perceptions of the world around them. However I also feel that this could get out of hand without the base respect that Ms. Derix had. Without the respect to raise their hands, and listen when others are talking, as well as waiting for their turn to work in a smaller group with the teacher bedlam may occur. I hope that my own students will see that I am open to inqusition yet als ask them to respect each other and myself in their search for answers.Class Topic: Snail addition to Ecocolumn
Grade: 6
Observed by: Mary Ackerman